Golf's U.S. open --- Mike (medium)
>> in this week’s “money and sports,” we’ll talk about the payoff from golf’s u.s. open, the cost of attending the olympic games and the price one soccer power may pay for defeat. joining us out of our atlanta bureau, as usual, bloomberg news reporter mike buteau. let’s start with the u.s. open, golf out of shinnecock, not far from new york city, the u.s. open the past weekend, of course. ratings were up 4% from last year. how could that possibly happen with tiger woods not really in the running in the final day?
>> tiger who? ratings up just slightly, 4%, as you said. up from last year, jim furyk won out in chicago and tiger wasn’t a factor last year and wasn’t a factor this year. ratings are up a little bit. retief goosen wins over phil mickelson. phil mickelson was the star over the weekend but when you look at ratings in general, tiger remains the driving force in golf when it comes to ratings and since 2001, the year after the pga tour signed its big contract, $850 million, ratings have gone down 7% so year after year and the further tiger is slipping back in the pack, the more ratings are falling and the more advertisers are wondering whether or not it’s good money to spend on golf.
>> no tiger woods on the leaderboard, that’s not going to sit well with fans. he has a lot of loyal fans out there.
>> absolutely. and as long as he’s in the tournament, people will show up to find out whether or not he’ll find his swing that week and hope they’ll see him catch fire again. but right now, phil mickelson coming in second at the u.s. open at shinnecock, it’s hard to say that the crowd―they might actually have been more in phil’s favor than they were in tiger’s. tiger at this point has kind of become almost an afterthought, if you can believe that, and phil is the king of golf, so to speak. when you listen to the crowds, for whatever reason, maybe it’s the loveable loser factor, but phil is clearly number one in the hearts of golf fans right now.
>> let’s talk about the olympics in our remaining time. obviously, any sporting event of this size will be designed to be a money-making event away from the competition itself. everybody looking to make a buck selling something, t-shirts, you name it. some say it might be going too far but i understand the greek government is trying to step in to bring things under control?
>> yes. this week they’ve introduced a number of bills into legislation for the olympics specifically talking about hotels and price gouging. it goes on every year, whether it be a super bowl or whatever event, the olympics, there’s no bigger sporting event in the world and no bigger opportunity for a hotel to make extra money price-gouging but the government wants to stop it. they’re essentially saying if you get caught price gouging, we’ll shut you down three months and you could face a fine up to $18,000, significant. if it goes further, it goes into advertisers, if you’re find advertising where you’re not supposed to be, ambush marketing , it would could be a $60,000 fine. so significant legislation to curtail people making extra money and a few bucks here and there off the olympics.
>> and i supposed to generate ticket sales, i remember reading that ticket sales for the individuals, not corporates, were lagging a bit?
>> absolutely. and there seems to be credible fear of―whether it be terrorism or the infrastructure around the olympics―whether or not things will run smoothly. there doesn’t seem to be that dire need to get to athens to see the olympics. salt lake was a big hit in the u.s. but getting to lanes athens might be a more of a logistical problem for people this is the “world financial report” so it’s only fair that we talk about soccer or football depending on where you’re watching from. greece knocking out the defend defending champion and criticism for the legendary david beckham from england. what’s the wrap there?
>> david beckham falling on the hearts of people who who can’t figure out why he can’t find the net. but the real losers in england are the pubs, the english economy which stood to make as much as $735 million if england had reached the quarter so significant money lost here and the pubs will be empty here.
>> mike buteau, a pleasure to have you on and appreciate you joining us here today. folks, you like the sound of a popping cork? is that could be a thing of the past, because using corks, dating back to the ancient greeks, now there may be an upscale alternative.
